The present invention relates to card dispensers, and more particularly to a card dispenser for use with prepaid cards such as telephone cards and railway tickets.
The present inventor has previously proposed a card dispenser comprising a housing section in which a housing box of a square shape in cross section whose lower end surface is opened and having a lower edge of a wall surface opposed at the open surface inwardly bended to provide a receiving rib is internally provided with a spring for biasing a card in a direction of the open end surface and a push plate; a dispensing section in which a cover plate mounted so as to cover the open end surface of the housing section is provided with a sliding rod which feeds one by one the lowermost card whenever so required among cards housed in the housing box upon reciprocating motion of the sliding rod; and a drive section which decelerates rotation of a drive motor to impart reciprocating motion to the sliding rod (Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open Nos. 61-168037 and 61-173400).
In the aforementioned prior card dispenser, the dispensing section is pivotally mounted on the lower end of the housing section so as to open and close the open surface of the lower end of the housing box. When cards are housed within the housing box, the housing section along with the dispensing section are removed out of the dispenser body, and thereafter the dispensing section and the housing section are disengaged from each other, and the dispensing section is rotated downwardly to open the open portion at the lower end of the housing box. Under this state, cards are supplied in a stacked fashion into the housing box from the lower open portion while pressing the push plate against the spring. Under this state, the lower open portion of the housing box is again closed by the dispensing section and then incorporated into the dispenser body. This structure has disadvantages in that operation of supplying cards to the housing box is cumbersome and handling is inconvenient.
Furthermore, in the dispensing section, the sliding rod is reciprocably mounted in a horizontal state on the cover body to cover the lower open portion of the card housing box constituting a housing section, and a push-out member formed, for example, of sintered metal is embedded in the intermediate portion of the sliding rod so that the surface of the sliding rod may be inflated. This structure has disadvantages in that in the process wherein the sliding rod moves forward so that the push-out member pushes out a card and then returns, the push-out member embedded in the sliding rod so that the surface thereof is inflated slidably contacts the surface of the new lowermost card to possibly damage said card, and in addition, the surface of the push-out member becomes worn to impair the adquate push-out function for cards.